Courtesy: Grand Island Fire Department
A fire at the JBS Grand Island, Nebraska, processing facility halted beef packing production Monday. The Grand Island Fire Department explained via Twitter the fire was burning the roof of the facility’s rendering section.
The JBS Grand Island facility is a two-shift, beef-processing plant employing more than 3,600 people. The facility’s Facebook page contained a post stating, “Fabrication and slaughter A and B shift will not be working” Monday. The facility has a daily processing capacity of 6,000 head and slaughters roughly five percent of U.S. cattle.
JBS in June announced a $130 million facility improvement effort to increase production capacity at both the Grand Island facility and another in Omaha. The impacts of the fire and how it was started are unclear. JBS told Reuters Monday they expected to reopen the facility Tuesday.
In 2019, a fire at Tyson’s Holcomb, Kansas facility took out 30,000 head of weekly processing capacity, with immediate and still lingering market disruption issues.
(From the National Association of Farm Broadcasters)